The audacity

Normalize businesses having enough employees that they can take their time whenever they want as long as notice is far enough out. Or people can call in sick without a replacement being required because you were already operating with a couple "extra" people.

And definitely normalize closing on holidays. The sheer number of American employers that require holiday work means it's not actually a holiday unless you're wealthy enough. If you absolutely, holy shit, must be open for a holiday, hire people who don't celebrate it. Maintaining a diverse staff means you can give holidays to the requisite groups without worry. Just put it on the application, "check the box for each holiday you must have off".

Small businesses cannot afford a few extra people on staff.
It will be worth it if big corporations start taking care of people properly, but one side effect will be that all the small businesses who already struggle to compete with the big corporations will get completely crushed.
Fair enough that if your business model cannot afford to properly compensate the workers then you deserve to go out of business, but due to capitalism, all small businesses fall in to this category.
Only large corporations can survive the transition into properly compensating workers. Sad all around.
- If your business cannot afford employees then your business model is not competitive.
  If small business, as a whole, is not competitive then we need to get the trust busting stick out again and break these retail giants down to size. I for one look forward to all of the baby Amazons.
  
  If your small business is slightly larger (>50 employees I think?) you have to start paying for health insurance, which adds significantly to the cost of each full-time employee.
  Single payer healthcare would be a huge boon to small businesses.
  
  Single payer healthcare would be the greatest gift to corporate finances since the last big bail out. Except it's being used as an anti-competitive cudgel right now.
  
  I’m sure the new team running the US will get right on that
  
  Ugh.
  
  Give it a few decades and they'll be back together under a different name. See Bell for a prime example. They're one or two mergers from being at 100% again
  
  Oh I'm aware. Thus the Baby Bells joke.
  
  It's not just a question of affording employees. Where I work there's only so many jobs to go around. If you hired enough extras to cover, then most of us would not have work to do on the daily. Even if they paid us to stand around, there are few people who want to do nothing at work all day. We have enough employees to cover one or two sick or vacationing people but we can't let everyone on the team take the same time off with only a month's notice. Well, not without losing customers.
  
  Not everyone has to work every day. And pay doesn't have to be hourly. To use a silly example, it could be done like a fantasy pirate ship. The expenses get paid for and then everyone gets a share. The elected captain gets 3 shares and his officers get 2.
  If that's not enough to hire enough people then refer to my previous comment. If it's not enough across the board then we have a systemic issue that needs to be addressed. (It's capitalism, it's always fucking capitalism and monopolies)
- Temp agencies exist for a reason.
Im not saying to not give people off. All I’m saying is there is no context here. From personal experience most people are selfish and there needs to be some kind of structure when giving PTO. Everyone should have an opportunity to be off but many places can’t shut down their business for 2 weeks because the home sports team made the playoffs. Again I’m speaking from experience. Some people need to be told no so that someone else that earned it or asked earlier can be off.
And just to add this but hiring so anyone can be off at anytime is not possible. You are essentially saying it’s ok to discriminate. For example if my business is in a predominantly Christian community many employees will want to be off on Sunday but that is a peak day because after church many people want to eat at my restaurant. Should I then reject any applications from Christian’s so I ensure I am staffed?
- You don't earn PTO. It comes in your contract and you can request it whenever you want it. Get out of your American bubble.
  
  Earn in the context of they put in a lot of hours to finish a project or whatever.
  Also don’t mention contracts if you don’t know what you’re talking about. There are plenty of contracts that offer zero pto. Again it’s all context. I swear y’all just want to argue and don’t even read what I’m typing. Business bad people good. That’s the extent of this argument at this point.
  
  There are plenty of contracts that offer zero pto
  Get out of your American bubble
  
  People don't need to put in extra hours to get the justified amount of PTO that is on their contract.
  
  Ignorant American, thinking is hard huh
- Hiring for availability is 100 percent a thing. I've filled out an availability chart at every retail job I ever worked. They don't ask why you aren't available and it's about making sure they can cover all of their positions. Discrimination is when you refuse to hire someone because of their religion, and having a bunch of people that are that religion already on staff is generally a pretty good indicator it's not because of their religion.
  It's absolutely possible to hire so that someone can call off without causing a chain reaction that kills the schedule and triggers over time. Employers just don't want to do it.

I think there’s enough info. Employee put in request. Request denied for biz needs but employee is fired anyways. Boss is a hypocritical asshole.

How are they hypocritical? They said no and gave what they thought was an appropriate consequence.
There is zero context here and if you were running a business and gave anyone off who asked there would be days you would have to close because you are short staffed. It’s very easy to say from your couch what you would do but when you need your business to provide for your family you think a little differently.
- There is zero context here
  So naturally you assume that the guy bragging about firing someone is in the right.
  
  A. They didn't assume, they said "we're lacking info and here is a hypothetical".
  B. Everyone else in this thread is assuming the opposite and no one cares there. Why only care about assumptions when it's one you don't like?
  It's valid to point out the other perspective.
  
  It wasn't a secondhand account. If the guy had a good justification for firing someone, he would have mentioned it.
- Honestly I said that from my toilet. But the point is that businesses that tend to say no to their employees about PTO normally aren’t operating in a way that gives employees the freedom to have a life outside of work. Sure, there’s the odd chance that it’s not the case, but more often than not this is what happens.
  The hypocrisy IMO comes from the act of “oh well I couldn’t give you the time off, you took it anyways, so you’re fired.” Which I get from a business perspective bc the employee went against the schedule, but why not find ways to not let your team get to that point. Most small businesses don’t even offer PTO to begin with.
  Creating an unhealthy work environment, then punishing your people for it is being a hypocrite.
  
  You are absolutely right. Again all I’m saying is there is no context. A good business will find a way to accommodate for example hire a temp or seasonal.
- "we need workers so you can't take PTO"
  "We don't need you, you're fired."
  They told him in one sentence he was essential, and in another, he was replaceable. Either they did not need him for the time he requested, as evidenced by the fact that they fired him, or they DID need him, and the boss isn't a hypocrite, just a short sighted idiot on a power trip.
  
  The worst thing you can do as an employee is prove to your employer you are not needed. The boss said employee was needed but the employee proved him wrong.
  
  I mean, sure. Still hypocritical.

If your fanfic is right and the boss is justified, they would have included it in their post.

Hey, what if there was a request off. Your other employee gets in a car wreck. You going to make them come in from the hospital since it wasn't requested off? This situation actually happened to a co-worker. The GM didn't ask if they were ok, they asked if they could still make it to cover their own lunch.

Shit happens. You deal with it, not retaliate.

PTO != LOA
PTO is like if you got a cold and needed a day or two, LOA is like if a major fucking event/sickness took over and could potentially ruin your life and you have to be out of work for weeks/months/years. With LOA you still get paid, though you may get slightly less than your normal paycheck. Still a paycheck though, and after saving gas from driving in, or saving money from the train/bus/subway, or savings costs of electricity from powering on your PC/heater/AC or whatever else in order to work from home, it almost balances out.
Also, in at least where I'm from, retaliation is illegal and businesses get sued out the ass for it.
Source: Work in the US, have used LOA and PTO, and have seen businesses go down for violating these laws.
- No, if you have a cold that should be sick leave, what stupid system do you have in the US?
  
  PTO is the same as sick leave. Vacation is separate from PTO.
  
  Wish it was like that everywhere. Quite a few businesses treat vacation the same as PTO. The outlier being holidays which sometimes is just the 1 day of the holiday and not enough for a vacation.
  
  Yeah, but sick leave should not be limited, and it should not be requested from an employer, the employer should be notified. As I understand, PTO does not work that way.
  
  Regarding the amounts of PTO, it depends on the company. Some companies don't offer it, so if you get sick and can't go to work then you can stay home and get better but you don't get paid. Those jobs suck and from what I've seen those jobs have high turnover due to people going to other companies for better benefits, like getting PTO. Most companies offer it, but in limited amounts. I personally get 5 days a year of paid time off, not including vacation time/LOA/Floating holidays, but I've utilized 11 days this year, I just didn't get paid for 6 of them. I think there are some companies that offer unlimited PTO, but I would guess those are only for experts in their fields and stuff.
  PTO isn't requested, it's notified, as you described. If I get sick, I don't ask my employer if I can take the day off, I tell them I'm not feeling well and I'll be staying home and utilizing PTO. That's how it's worked for me at multiple different jobs.
Imo it’s a given that if someone is in the hospital and asked for some PTO I would grant it without question.
All I’m saying is based on the initial scenario there isn’t enough information to say the boss is wrong to fire the person.
- Oh they didn't ask for pto, they were covering for the person who asked for pto.
  I'm just saying EVERY business needs to plan for an employee being out. If that's hiring a part timer so be it, if that's a manager covering a shift so be it, if it's the owner of the company working a register, so be it. Owning/running a business means planning for the unexpected.

I can't think of any scenarios where bragging about it is justified.

I can think of a lot more scenarios where the employee is justified.